Chocolate, Cocaine, and Technology
by PsychicDreams
Summary: Are the old days really better or is Yuuko finally just been dropped off her rocker by none other than a computer? [No actual chocolate or cocaine here, but the title sounded cool. Bday fic challenge for someone with their specs to the story]


The banging sound was what alerted him to something being very wrong. Followed after came the most inventive curses that he had ever heard and though he told himself it would end badly, he went curiously to find the source. He had been a little jumpy all day as work at Yuuko's had been exceedingly _quiet_. It led him to believe something terrible and horrible would be on the horizon.

It didn't take long to find her and she was in the worst temper he had ever seen. Had she been a manga character, he would have sworn he would have seen that commonplace anger mark right smack dab on her forehead and taking up an entire panel. She didn't even bother to mutter her curses under her breath and spat them out with a level of venom that a demon would be hard pressed to match. The girls and Mokona had gone mysteriously missing, obviously sensing not to aggravate their mistress' mood.

"Uh…Yuuko-san? What are you doing?" His tone was overly cautious, as if she were a crazy person ready to explode into violence at any moment with any loud voice or quick movement.

Which she was on any _normal_ day, but that wasn't the point.

"I hate this _stupid_, **idiotic**, _**EVIL CREATED THING**_!!"

He peered over her shoulder to see the 'thing' in question.

"It's just a computer."

"No, it's a computer possessed by _EVIL_! Weren't you listening?!"

Her cool and calm demeanor seemed to have deserted her and Watanuki felt the sudden urge to back away slowly and hide like the smart soulless children and black porkbun. Her hands, clenched into fists, hovered dangerously over the keyboard and in the end, decided to bang repeatedly in frustration on the desk instead of the sensitive equipment.

Fancifully, he thought that was enough force to her pounding to level a small building to the ground.

"I'm pretty good with computers," he finally suggested, albeit hesitantly. "I'm not the best, but I've used them once or twice to know the most of the controls. I could help, if you want. I mean, I don't _own_ one myself, but we have to use them in school occasionally…"

Watanuki trailed off when silence met his suggestion. Apparently that wasn't big on her list of favorites because the look she gave him was nothing less than scorching. He saw very clearly how tight her jaw became and she forced out the words between baring, clenched teeth.

"No, I will do it myself." The tone of 'I will do it or die' left no room to misjudge it as something else.

"Uh…okay." Taking that as the perfect sign to flee, Watanuki did so, back to the safety of his kitchen. He proceeded to ignore the shouts and bangs behind him that was the testament to Yuuko's rage on a poor, unassuming machine that could only do what it was programmed too.

---

"What are you doing…?"

He glared over his shoulder at the very stupid question and hissed quietly, "Making sure she's not in a bad mood before I go in there! I tell you, Yuuko-san was fit to be tied the other day and over a computer! Honestly, who doesn't even know how to work one even a little bit?"

"She's not even there."

"_And how the hell would you know?!_" At his fiercely whispered tirade, Doumeki merely pointed to his right eye. Deflated, Watanuki shrugged in a bad manner and went back to peering around the edge of the fence for any sign of his boss. "Just shut up."

"I didn't say anything."

"You don't need to, I know you're thinking something stupid!" he screamed back, probably disturbing the neighborhood but failing to care in the slightest.

Doumeki only raised his eyebrow and pointed over Watanuki's left shoulder. It only made the other boy's mood worse as it seemed his partner had opted for even less words than usual that day and he had no choice but to decrypt the walking mystery that was Doumeki Shizuka.

_Let's see, eyebrow up by one centimeter, eyes slightly to the left, and the whole pointing thing…curl in his lip that you can't really see but feel…Ah! Doumeki Facial Expression 007: I'm highly amused at your idiotic behavior and there will be even something more hilarious to watch as soon as you look over your shoulder._

Thinking that there was no worse punishment than to deal with Doumeki for a whole day, he skeptically glanced over his shoulder down the street. Standing there happened to be none other than his boss and clearly in a much better mood than yesterday. In fact, she had a huge wine bottle in her hand, and smiled drunkenly.

"Ah, Watanuki! Just the person I wanted to see! I just got back, but I realized I needed something else and I'm too lazy to go get it, so get it for me!"

"Yuuko-saaaaan! I'm working to pay off my wish, not your personal slave! And I'm not a mind reader, so how am I supposed to know what you forgot if you don't tell me?!"

"Don't worry," she laughed, giggled, and hiccupped at once, obviously drunk off her rocker. "They'll know."

"_They_?"

"Doumeki can go with you even!"

"No wait just one second here!" he demanded, growing more and more alarmed at having to spend _more_ time with the archer than he thought should ever be allowed without calling it torture.

"Go, go, go! I need it now!"

"Go _where_?!" He was tempted to throw in an insult to show how low his mood had sunk, but knew better than to really piss her off.

"Oh and you'll need kimonos."

"Say what?!"

"Doumeki probably has one for you if you don't."

"Wait just—"

"In fact, it'd probably be easier to just go by the temple instead of your apartment."

"That's not—"

"Now go, bye bye little boys have fun and don't get waylaid in Doumeki's room."

The last sentence was said all in a rush, as if trying to avoid slurring by speaking as fast as possible and Watanuki realized then that she was down and out drunk. Yuuko had an amazing capacity for alcohol and had she just reached that bottomless limit of hers? She hadn't even used the '-kun' for Doumeki like she usually did.

"I hate my life," he decided right then and there with a sad but firm nod to himself. Doumeki only grunted at him.

---

Wherever they were at was dark and he didn't like it one bit. Nor did he like what he was wearing.

"Would you _stop_ that?!" He forcefully shoved Doumeki's hands away only to have to fight them off again when the archer remained undeterred.

"It's big on you. If I don't fix it, it'll come off."

"_GAH!!!_ Where the hell are you touching, you pervert?!"

"I'm looking for the sash."

"WELL THAT'S NOT IT, DO YOU HEAR ME?!"

"No, that didn't feel like it."

Watanuki was glad it was dark for a split second because it hid his mortified blush. "Would you get your hands _above_ my waist, you ass?!"

"Found it."

Caught off guard because he couldn't see, he jumped when the sash for the kimono was dragged tighter and more securely around his waist. He convinced himself that it was just his imagination that Doumeki's fingers lingered just a little longer than necessary on his hips, as if massaging or exploring. There was no way that would ever happen. Doumeki was a down-and-out ladies man with eyes on his precious Himawari. There was no way in hell that Doumeki would grope a guy on purpose, especially not him.

And he wasn't disappointed, never that!

"DAMN IT, Doumeki I told you to stop touching me! That was my butt you just grabbed!!"

"I didn't touch you."

"YES YOU DID."

"Did not."

"DID TOO."

"Did not."

"DID TOO DID TOO _DID TOO_."

There was an annoyed huff from somewhere behind him in the general vicinity where he guessed Doumeki was. "_This_ is what it would feel like if I touched you." To prove his point, a very firm, big hand gripped his butt so tightly that Watanuki squeaked and _swore_ that those fingers were sliding a little too intimately against him. "Did it feel like that?"

Watanuki stumbled away to…somewhere. "HELL NO YOU BIG HUGE STUPID PERVERT!"

"Then it wasn't me."

"Then who, pray tell, would—GAHHHHHHHHH! SOMETHING'S HERE, SOMETHING'S HERE AND IT GRABBED MY ASS AGAIN!" He couldn't help panicking and his feet took him in the last known Doumeki-Direction. He slammed full on into a well-muscled chest that he knew instinctively belonged to said Doumeki and clutched at the warm mass as if it were the lesser of two evils. "_WHY_ are people so obsessed with my ass?!" he whined.

"…Well, it _is_ rather shapely." A pause of silence as Watanuki couldn't believe what he was hearing. "And kinda cute."

"Oh. My. God. I just did _not_ hear that!"

Footsteps penetrated into his panicked state as he stood there and wondered if he was safer with the unknown than Doumeki. But it was utter, pure blackness around them, so much so that he couldn't even see his own hands, much less anything that might be approaching. Doumeki's hand on his shoulder, when or how it got there he didn't know, tightened protectively.

"Oh, you must be him. I knew Yuuko forgot something when she left!"

The voice echoed, but as far as Watanuki knew, there were no walls for it to echo against. "W-Where…?"

"Never mind where or who, I don't have much time. I have to get back to my husband. I mean it _is_ my wedding night and all. Just take this back to her and thank Yuuko for coming again!"

Something was pressed into his hand, something that felt cool and round to the touch, but he didn't have time to guess what it was when a gush of wind slammed into the both of them and caused them to tumble, onto a ground that was no longer there.

---

"You forgot…your necklace…"

Yuuko clutched at her necklace the next morning, all better from her hangover thanks to the overstock she had of ekiyabe. "Ah, I missed it so much! It's from years and years gone past. You won't find something like this _now_."

Now that she mentioned it, he hadn't seen a style like that except in history books. And yet, he couldn't get a good look at anything beyond that because she secreted it away in a jewelry box that Maru mysteriously appeared and disappeared just as quickly.

"Where the hell did you send us, Yuuko-san? Where did you leave it?"

"At Yukiko's wedding ceremony. She's my sister fifteen times removed from my mother's side and seven times removed from _her_ father's side and was the great-great-great-granddaughter of my mother, who got married to a distant uncle who then got married to his daughter by complete accident, I mean they _had_ been separated for fifteen years and he had no idea it was her, and anyway…"

Watanuki let it all pass over him as his eyes bulged and couldn't make any sense of what she was saying. He wasn't sure he was supposed to, really. "What _demented_ sort of family tree do you _have_?" he demanded. "And where you sent us wasn't a wedding reception! It was all black and…stuff!"

She blinked, but didn't appear surprised at his description. "Yes it was, you just couldn't see it."

"Yuuuuukooooo-saaaaaan! I was _groped_ by some invisible entity _and_ Doumeki! I'm _traumatized!_ I think I earned some explanation!"

"Hmm…probably my uncle eight times removed from my sixth-times-removed cousin's side, who happens to be married to my father's father, who used to prostitute himself out for money. He has a fetish for cute boys for all that."

"STOP! STOP STOP STOP! I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ANYMORE!"

He stormed away, only hearing Yuuko's faint muttering as background noise in his ears, "Who needs computers anyway?! Stupid things! Old days were better, I say! Stupid technology! Stupid emails and Internet and Windows and…"

And just his bad luck, he ran right into Doumeki as he left the shop gates. "This can't be happening…"

"Still convinced I groped you that time or shall I show you again where you can see it?"

"HELL NO!"

**End**


End file.
